A.140 The National Planning Policy Framework, supported by planning guidance, already incorporates elements of the ‘agent of change’ principle (this provides that the person or business responsible for the change should be responsible for managing the impact of that change) in relation to noise, by being clear that existing businesses wanting to grow should not have unreasonable restrictions put on them because of changes in nearby land uses since they were established.

A.141 We propose to amend the Framework to emphasise that planning policies and decisions should take account of existing businesses and other organisations, such as churches, community pubs, music venues and sports clubs, when locating new development nearby and, where necessary, to mitigate the impact of noise and other potential nuisances arising from existing development. This will help mitigate the risk of restrictions or possible closure of existing businesses and other organisations due to noise and other complaints from occupiers of new developments. ”

The latest statement takes this further forward not one jot. I was blogging about the agent of change principle back in October 2016 in my post Noise Annoys.

The prod for the 18 January announcement was the introduction into the House of Commons on 10 January 2018 of a private members’ bill, the Planning (Agent of Change) Bill, by Labour MP John Spellar. Following the debate on 10 January, the Bill (which has not actually been published at this stage, as is often the case with private members’ bills of this nature which are largely intended just intended to draw attention to an issue) was due to receive a second reading on 19 January but this has now been postponed until 16 March. Presumably the intention of the bill was simply to keep the Government focused on what it had already indicated to do. If this is how politicians have to spend their time but it all seems odd to this outsider.
The agent of change concept really now does have momentum, with a strong campaign run by the Music Venue Trust and supported by the Local Government Association. It is frustrating that even such an apparently simple change to policy (oversold in Javid’s statement as a new “rule”) takes so long to introduce.
The Welsh Assembly was able to move rather faster, introducing an equivalent policy change by its letter letter Supporting the Night Time Economy and the Agent of Change Principle (26 May 2017):
“Existing policy in Planning Policy Wales already says new uses should not be introduced into an area without considering the nature of existing uses. Under the agent of change principle, if new developments or uses are to be introduced near a pre-existing business, such as a live music venue, it is the responsibility of the developer to ensure solutions to address and mitigate noise are put forward as part of proposals and are capable of being implemented.

PPW also encourages local planning authorities to consider the compatibility of uses in areas and afford appropriate protection where they consider it necessary, as part of their development plans. The revisions to PPW will add to this and allow for the designation of areas of cultural significance for music through development plans.”

The letter advises Welsh planning authorities that they “should begin to apply this principle, where it is a relevant consideration, with immediate effect.” Javid could have taken this approach with his 18 January announcement and it is a disappointment that he did not.
The Mayor of London has also of course introduced a policy into the draft London plan.

There has also been coverage this week of the supposed news of further slippage in the publication of the draft NPPF, which would cause further delay to the final document. Senior MCHLG servant Melanie Dawes was reported in Planning magazine as saying to the CLG Commons Select Committee that it would be “ready for consultation in the next few months – I hope just before Easter or thereabouts”, meaning that we should assume it may be at the end of March (“or thereabouts”!). But again, this wasn’t news, given that Government chief planner Steve Quartermain’s 21 December 2017 letter to local authorities had promised the draft “early” in 2018. The letter states that the final version of the revised NPPF would be “before the end of the summer“. In my view this is careful wording: we should not necessarily assume that we will see it this side of the Parliamentary recess (which starts on 20 July). Which of course has an immediate influence on those authorities who had either been rushing to submit their local plans by the end of March 2018 or waiting until after that deadline, depending on their tactical judgment as to how they would be affected by the proposed standardised methodology for assessing housing needs – that end of March deadline is now a late summer deadline.

Honestly, it would be enough to make one scream, if it wasn’t for the neighbours.
Simon Ricketts, 19.1.18
Personal views, et cetera

This is not a proper simonicity blog post but a quick review of the year that was 2017, followed by a comment-free look at 2018, which promises, conversely, to be the year of the review.2017: review of the year

• the Labour party’s review of the planning system, “People and Planning”, announced by Roberta Blackman-Woods at its 2017 party conference.

• Nick Raynsford’s review for the Town and Country Planning Association “to identify how the Government can reform the English planning system to make it fairer, better resourced and capable of producing quality outcomes, while still encouraging the production of new homes.” A report is to be formally presented at all major party conferences in autumn 2018.

• a revised version of the National Planning Policy Framework for consultation in the Spring of 2018 with a final version in the Summer.

• a consultation process in Spring 2018 on detailed proposals to reform the Community Infrastructure Levy.

* further implementation of existing legislation as well as an amendment to the General Permitted Development Order to give deemed permission (subject to criteria and limitations yet to be spelt out) to the demolition of existing commercial buildings and their replacement with residential development.
Away from England:
* The Law Commission is consulting until 1 March 2018 on proposals to simplify and consolidate planning law in Wales at the request of the Welsh Government, which is drafting a planning code to consolidate existing planning legislation.
* The Planning (Scotland) Bill was introduced into the Scottish Parliament on 4 December 2017, following an independent review of the system. As well as progress in 2018 on the Bill, which proposes wide-ranging changes to the planning process in Scotland, we can also expect an amended version of Scotland’s National Planning Framework.

All of this is going to take some unpacking.
Happy new year and thanks for continuing to read, comment, share and follow. Let’s continue to join the dots and call out the spin within this increasingly diffuse policy area. Not a love song – more of a wail…
Simon Ricketts, 30 December 2017
Personal views, et cetera

As set out in his 16 November 2017 written ministerial statement, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has written to 15 local planning authorities (Basildon, Brentwood, Bolsover, Calderdale, Castle Point, Eastleigh, Liverpool, Mansfield, North East Derbyshire, Northumberland, Runnymede, St Albans, Thanet, Wirral and York), indicating that they have “the opportunity to put forward any exceptional circumstances, by 31 January 2018, which, in their view, justify their failure to produce a Local Plan under the 2004 Act regime.” He will then make a formal decision as to whether formally to intervene in their plan-making.
His Bristol speech on the same day says this:

“…today is the day that my patience has run out.

Those 15 authorities have left me with no choice but to start the formal process of intervention that we set out in the white paper.

By failing to plan, they have failed the people they are meant to serve.

The people of this country who are crying out for good quality, well-planned housing in the right places, supported by the right infrastructure.

They deserve better, and by stepping in now I’m doing all I can to ensure that they receive it.”

Will this be another empty threat or this time will we actually see some action? Back 20 July 2015 the then minister for housing and planning, Brandon Lewis, announced in a written ministerial statement:

“In cases where no Local Plan has been produced by early 2017 – five years after the publication of the NPPF – we will intervene to arrange for the Plan to be written, in consultation with local people, to accelerate production of a Local Plan.”

* intervention would have the greatest impact in accelerating local plan production.

Decisions on intervention would be informed by the wider planning context in each area (specifically, the extent to which authorities are working co-operatively to put strategic plans in place, and the potential impact that not having a plan has on neighbourhood planning activity).

The Government confirmed in its February 2017 housing white paper that these criteria would indeed be adopted.

The February 2016 technical consultation proposed that authorities identified for potential intervention would be given an opportunity to set out exceptional circumstances why that should not happen:

“What constitutes an ‘exceptional circumstance’ cannot, by its very nature, be defined fully in advance, but we think it would be helpful to set out the general tests that will be applied in considering such cases. We propose these should be:

• whether the issue significantly affects the reasonableness of the conclusions that can be drawn from the data and criteria used to inform decisions on intervention;

• whether the issue had a significant impact on the authority’s ability to produce a local plan, for reasons that were entirely beyond its control.”

We can assume that those 15 authorities will now be looking very carefully at this passage.

A political decision to intervene is one thing but what would then be the legal process to be followed?

The Housing and Planning Act 2016 amended the default powers of the Secretary of State within section 27 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, so that it read as follows:
Under section 9 of the Neighbourhood Planning Act 2017, the Secretary of State can now also order the preparation of joint development plans, giving him a further option in the case of interventions, particularly as he “may apportion liability for the expenditure arising on such basis as he thinks just between the local planning authorities for whom the document has been prepared.”
Of course the practicalities are quite another thing. How is the Government actually going to go about the intervention process? Preparing the document centrally, directing an adjoining authority to take the lead or parachuting in civil servants or consultants to carry out the work (all at the cost of the authority) is surely always going to be a last resort. The process is likely to be locally unpopular, prone to error and obviously liable to litigation. Authorities may also trip over themselves in their belated haste. However, surely after the end of January a few authorities are bound to be identified, pour encourager les autres.
So how have these authorities found themselves in this position? Here’s just a flavour:BasildonYellow Advertiser (20 April 2017):

“Tory chief Phil Turner has suggested calling in independent analysts to go over the plan, which allocates land for development across the borough until 2034.

Cllr Turner said he hoped to ask experts to go over the plan’s policies on green belt and infrastructure.

He said he hoped the move would help him cut the number of planned houses in the borough, which currently sits at 15,260.

He said: “We can’t review the whole plan but those two points are areas where we think there may be opportunities about reducing our housing numbers.

“During the consultations, we’ve had a lot of feedback about how people don’t think we are working hard enough to to save the green belt. We don’t want to build on the green belt and we have avoided it as much as possible but I don’t think the public actually believes us.

“So what we are thinking is we should call in some independent people to scrutinise the plan and tell us where we can maybe use the evidence to put up an argument to challenge the housing numbers.”

Cllr Turner was due to present the proposal to all councillors in a secret meeting last night.

If approved, he said the process could cost a six-figure sum and take up to six months.”

Brentwood
Largely green belt authority. Prolonged delays.

Bolsover

Local Plan withdrawn after it failed examination in 2014. Failure to co-operate with North East Derbyshire District Council and Chesterfield Borough Council with regard to a strategic development site. Calderdale

“Councillor Scott Benton, Leader of the Calderdale Conservatives, said: “‘The draft Local Plan published by the Labour Council administration has caused great concern throughout the different communities of Calderdale.

“The Labour Party have clearly been taken aback by the scale of the opposition to their plans and instead of meeting their target of producing a Final Plan in December, they have announced that they are now kicking the issue down the road again until after the elections next summer.

“‘Labour’s first attempt at producing a draft Plan was a disaster. Instead of working with residents and other Councillors to produce a Plan that is fit for purpose they have delayed the process until after elections. This makes a mockery of our local democracy and demonstrates why Calderdale requires fresh leadership.”

Castle Point

Local Plan failed examination in April 2017 – failure adequately to assess housing need, and failure to cooperate with neighbouring councils.EastleighEastleigh News (16 November 2017):“In February 2015, Eastleigh had to go back to the drawing board after its first Local Plan was rejected by the planning inspector because, he said, it didn’t plan for enough new homes – in particular new affordable ones.

On December 11 the council will meet for a crunch vote on their new Local Plan and the council’s preferred options of housing development on land North of Bishopstoke and Fair Oak (Options B and C).

There has been fierce local opposition – not just from the residents most likely to be affected by the development of 5,000 new homes but also from residents close to the route of a proposed M3 link road that will stretch across countryside from Upham to Allbrook.

So far this year three councillors have stood down from the ruling Liberal Democrat group to sit as Independents because of their concerns over the direction of the local plan.

It is likely they will join the opposition Conservative group on December 11 in voting against the council’s favoured options – though this is unlikely to prevent their adoption.”

“Hayley Barsby, Interim Chief Executive at Mansfield District Council, said: “We are disappointed to have been named as one of the 15 local authorities.

“We are confident that while we don’t have an up-to-date Local Plan that this hasn’t affected development in the district.

“Mansfield District Council is committed to bringing forward house building – this is demonstrated by the council supporting the Berry Hill development (formerly known as the Lindhurst development) which will create 1,700 new houses for the district.

“Of the 9,024 new homes we need to provide by 2033, planning permission already exists for 4,147.

“Over the past 12 months we have worked hard to bring forward the Local Plan and during this time we have been mindful to undertake feasibility and consultation to ensure it reflects not only the needs of the district but also the views of our communities.

Following an initial consultation in early 2016 on the draft Local Plan, we received 1,477 comments which were then reviewed to ensure the plan is fit for purpose up to 2033.

The council reviewed its position and prepared a new vision and objectives. These have been used to create alternative options for the delivery of sustainable housing and employment to meet future requirements.

A Preferred Options consultation took place in October and November 2017.”

North East DerbyshireDerbyshire Times (18 October 2017) quotes the Labour leader of the council in response to criticisms from the local (Conservative) MP:“We are well aware of the need to protect the character of our area and have done all we can to do this, however the Government’s expectations and targets for housing place significant pressure on our ability to continue this.”

He added: “As such we’d welcome any moves by the MP to seek a revision to Government policy so that the expectations for north east Derbyshire are realistic and in keeping with those of our residents.”Northumberland

“Northumberland’s Local Plan, a key document which details where development should take place, is not likely to be adopted until 2020. In the summer, the county council’s new Conservative administration withdrew the Local Plan Core Strategy – put together by the council’s Labour group before losing the county election in May – to review a number of aspects of the document, primarily due to concerns that numbers for the proposed level of new housing were too high.”

Runnymede
Local plan failed examination in 2014 due to failure to meet housing needs and failure of duty to co-operate. St Albans

Local Plan failed examination in 2016 due to failure of duty to co-operate, council’s subsequent challenge to that decision failed.Thanet

“Wirral Council’s leader is preparing for battle with Whitehall over plans that could force the authority to turn green belt land into a housebuilding free for all.

The Government has ruled Wirral must produce a blueprint demonstrating how it will hit a target of building nearly 1,000 new homes each year over the next five years.

That’s 500 more than the present annual number.

Councillor Phil Davies says he is adamant that he will not sanction the release of green belt land – and has written to communities secretary Sajid Javid urging him to reconsider.”

York
Prolonged delays. York Press (16 November 2017):
“City of York Council’s Conservative and Liberal Democrat leaders have pointed to delays caused by the announcement of barracks closures in York, and insisted they are on course to deliver a sound plan by May.

Leader Cllr David Carr said: “We’re making very good progress to deliver a Local Plan which is right for York – one which provides the homes and employment opportunities we need while protecting our city’s greenbelt and special character.

“We rightly reviewed the plan after the Ministry of Defence’s announcement over the future of three very large sites, and consulted once again listen to views from across York.”

…

However the announcement has brought criticism from Labour councillors, who say they warned this could happen.”Themes
Tell me if I am over-simplifying but it seems to me that there are some common, unsurprising, themes within this list:
– Uncertainties as to the calculation of objectively assessed needs and the extent to which authorities can justify not meeting that need to due to green belt issues (nearly all these authorities have areas of green belt within their boundaries).
– Uncertainties as to the extent to which it may be appropriate for authorities to assist in meeting other authorities’ needs, the duty to co-operate being far too loose a mechanism (which is not necessarily to suggest that a return to regional planning and “top down” numbers is the answer – these are authorities who didn’t manage to adopt a plan even under that regime, which of course had built into it inherent delays at the regional tier).

– As a result of this wriggle room, housing numbers becoming a political battleground, with members often not accepting officers’ advice or with changes in approach arising from changes in political control.

– Delays due to plans having been found unsound at the end of, or a long way into, a long process (usually as a result of these factors).

– Plainly, these authorities haven’t been sufficiently spurred on by the application of the “tilted balance” leading to development taking place in unplanned, unwanted locations – perhaps due to that policy lever being less effective in relation to green belt – or other Government threats to date.

– Many of the authorities being, on paper at least (their websites tell a good story to their constituents), now close to being able to submit a plan for examination, after (usually) a series of Regulation 18 consultation processes.

Is slow plan-making the fault of local politicians or of the planning system itself? I would say both. The lack of prescription as to numbers and methodology has inevitably given room for protracted, unending, debate as to different approaches and outcomes. Debate and local choice is surely to be welcomed but the system has been so loose that in some areas this has slowed progress to an extent that anyone would surely say was unacceptable. Accordingly, the proposed tightening of the OAN methodology (see my 20 September 2017 blog post) and of the duty to co-operate is surely welcome, as is this clear threat by Javid of intervention.

However, if formal intervention is actually required, the outcome will surely be a political, administrative and legal mess.
…………………..

Meanwhile, it is perhaps unfortunate timing that in the same week the Secretary of State has made a holding direction in relation to the Stevenage local plan, at the request of local Conservative MP Stephen McPartland, despite a favourable Inspector’s report having been received last month. The issue appears to result from a continuing fault line both in Stevenage and more widely: whether to provide homes by way of town centre redevelopment (as per the plan) or outside the town in a new settlement (as per Mr McPartland).

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the Stevenage position, why allow such political interventions if the plan has been found sound?
Simon Ricketts, 18 November 2017
Personal views, et cetera

(With thanks to Town Legal colleague Rebecca Craig for some background research. Mistakes and opinions all mine).

The papers are good and if anyone is going to review the planning system then TCPA president and ex Labour housing and planning minister Nick Raynsford is the right person, backed by a heavyweight team (albeit one that is light on developer input).
But…
Here we are in a becalmed area of policy making, away from the high winds and storms of Brexit, with so many unfinished changes to our current system (a July 2017 House of Commons Library research briefing on the Government’s Planning Reform Proposals counts 22 of them). There have been too many ideas but not enough sieving. There’s an implementation logjam.
There is little governmental appetite or capacity I’m sure for further significant reform in this Parliament. Putting it charitably, Alok Sharma has hit the ground walking, with little other than disparate funding announcements (eg in August announcements of £6.2m funding for Didcot garden town and £65m funding for build to rent at Wembley Park) and trumpeting of at best inconclusive home start statistics as to new homes starts.
Furthermore, what role does a review have where it has not been called for or endorsed from government, and is one which is led by a former Labour politician, however experienced in the issues? The planning system is a machine, big cogs, little cogs, to deliver the government of the day’s social, economic and environmental objectives. Unless the review is just to be about process, what objectives are to be assumed in framing recommendations? Where is the machine to be pointed? Or is this about establishing a 2020 vision come the next election, but by which time we will be in another place, politically, economically? The past is a different country, but so is the future.
Too cynical? Perhaps this vulnerable, overwhelmed government, focusing its attention on the impossibility of Brexit, will be only too keen to accept non-partisan thinking. Strike that. Of course it won’t. It pays lip service at best to the recommendations of the Commons CLG Select Committee. It stalls implementation of previously commissioned reports, for example in relation to CIL. I’m sure that the recommendations of the Raynsford report will be wise and wide-ranging. But it will land with a silent thud.
Has there been any governmental activity that has been subject to quite so many reviews as has the planning system? Perhaps this is inevitable given that planning is a wholly artificial policy construct, a political intervention, but it’s quite a roll of honour:
– Barlow Commission report on the Distribution of the Industrial Population (1940)
– Utthwatt report on Compensation and Betterment (1941)
– Scott report on Land Utilisation in Rural Areas. (1942)
– Beveridge report on Social Insurance and Allied Services (1942)
– Reith report on New Towns (1946)
– Planning Advisory Group report on the Future Of Development Plans (1965)
– Skeffington report on Public Participation in Planning’ (1969)
– Dobry review of the Development Control System (1975)
– Those influential white papers Lifting The Burden (1985) and Building Businesses Not Barriers (1986)

– Lord Rogers report Towards An Urban Renaissance (1999)
– The green paper Planning: Delivering A Fundamental Change (2001), together with four daughter papers published at the same time.
– Barker reviews of Housing Supply (2004) and of Land Use Planning (2006)
– Eddington review of Transport (2006)
– Lyons Inquiry into Place Shaping (2007)
– White Paper, Planning For A Sustainable Future (2007)
– Killian Pretty Review: Planning applications: A faster and more responsive system (2008)

Those are just some of the reviews that have been undertaken or sponsored by government, to which we can add work by think tanks and campaign organisations such as the TCPA. There are almost too many to catalogue but how about, for instance, the work of:
– Policy Exchange eg A Right to Build: Local homes for local people (2016)

Hats off as always to the TCPA for not giving up, sitting on the sidelines or focusing on the here and now. They deserve, and will need, our support because the review’s outcome will not be a soundbite-sized, easy-to-swallow happy pill but will look worryingly like the work of…

There have been two interesting judgments already this August, both by well-respected members of the planning bar sitting as deputies. Not everyone is away. Both cases illustrate the political and unpredictable nature of decision-making where neighbourhood plan issues arise. Between them they include a range of traditional, but still interesting and difficult, planning principles:
– When is the decision maker taken to have a closed mind or for his or her decision to be improperly infected by lobbying?
– How should the decision maker determine whether proposed planning conditions may or may not be relevant to the decision?
– The test to be applied when determining when a decision may be invalid when a consideration, that is capable of being material, is not taken into account.
– the extent of the requirement for consistency in decision making.
– the effect on a decision of a material error of fact in its reasoning
The first two issues are addressed (as well as others) in Verdin and the last three issues are addressed in Cumberlege.Verdin (t/a the Darnhall Estate) v Secretary of State & Cheshire West and Chester Borough Council (Robin Purchas QC sitting as a deputy High Court judge, 10 August 2017).
This proposal for 184 dwellings on the edge of Winsford, Cheshire, had been recovered on appeal for the Secretary of State’s own decision, rather than being left for an inspector to determine, due to the then emerging Winsford neighbourhood plan. (It will be remembered that the Secretary of State’s policy, most recently stated on 12 December 2016, for a further period of six months which ended on 12 June 2017, has been to recover for his own decision making all appeals in relation to “proposals for residential development over 25 dwellings in areas where a qualifying body has submitted a neighbourhood plan proposal to the local planning authority but the relevant plan has not been made“. This has slowed down and added uncertainty in relation to many appeals that frankly should have been left for capable inspectors to determine.)

After a very slow application and appeal process (application July 2013, refusal November 2013, inquiry June 2014, reopened inquiry following representations that material considerations had changed September 2015, decision letter July 2016), the Secretary of State had dismissed the appeal, against his inspector’s recommendations. In so doing he partly relied on a finding that the scheme was in conflict with the Winsford neighbourhood plan. Unlike his inspector, who found that there were “very substantial social benefits from the proposal“, the Secretary of State found that any benefits of the proposal not outweighing a combination of that conflict and “moderate harm to the environmental dimension of sustainable development from the adverse impact of the loss of open fields”. As part of his downgrading of the benefits that the inspector saw as arising from the scheme, the Secretary of State took the view that four proposed conditions put forward by the appellant (requiring self-build housing as part of the development; requiring training and employment measures; requiring local building firms to be used, and requiring local procurement) did not meet the six tests in the NPPF (necessary; relevant to planning and to the development to be permitted; enforceable; precise; reasonable in all other respects) and therefore he did not take them into account.

The deputy judge’s judgment is interesting for the factual references in passing to the lobbying and internal deliberation that is going on behind the scenes. See for instance paragraph 129, referring to lobbying from the local MP seeking to delay the decision until after an inspector had reported on the local plan (presumably with the hope that the report would assist objectors’ case on the five year housing land position) and referring to civil servants’ internal email correspondence which was said by the appellant to demonstrate that the decision was being delayed to give time for the neighbourhood plan to be made. Paragraph 144 also refers to “the existence of a draft submission from one officer in the planning casework division which proposed a recommendation that the appeal be allowed but which was subsequently changed in the submission that was made to ministers”.

A number of the appellant’s grounds of challenge were rejected, including that the then planning minister Brandon Lewis had a closed mind in deciding not to permit residential schemes on sites not allocated in the neighbourhood plan by virtue of the letter that he had sent in 2016 to the Planning Inspectorate in relation to appeals involving neighbourhood plan issues (“wholly unarguable”); that the Secretary of State had unlawfully delayed his decision (which the deputy judge did not infer into the internal email correspondence) and that he acted unlawfully in allowing himself to be lobbied by local members of Parliament (no basis for that because the letters were made available allowing representations to be made).
However, the deputy judge went on to quash the decision on the basis that the Secretary of State had no basis for rejecting the proposed conditions requiring training and employment measures; requiring local building firms to be used, and requiring local procurement. Whilst the Secretary of State was justified in rejecting the self-build housing as going beyond the advice in the NPPF because it sought to control the values at the plots would be made available, there was no basis for his criticisms of the other conditions. The judgment includes a useful analysis of the legal tests and an examination of the conditions against those tests.
Whilst no doubt the appellant will be pleased to have another shot at persuading the Secretary of State to arrive at a different conclusion this time round, it is disappointing to be left with the sense that timing is all and the Secretary of State and his civil servants, as well as of course objectors, know it. Who hasn’t sensed from time to time that decisions have been subject to delay whilst at the same time, conveniently for objectors, the housing land supply position has changed or an emerging neighbourhood or local plan has gained traction? And who doesn’t sense that appeals such as this are as much about the politics as the about the evidence?Baroness Cumberlege of Newick v Secretary of State & DLA Delivery Limited (John Howell QC sitting as a deputy High Court judge, 4 August 2017).
This related to an appeal against refusal of planning permission for an even smaller scheme, for up to 50 dwellings in Newick, Sussex. Here the appeal had been allowed by the Secretary of State who had recovered it due to the then emerging Newick neighbourhood plan. However the decision was challenged by Baroness Cumberlege and her husband, both local residents and members of the Newick Village Society. The baroness, aside from being a Conservative peer, has, according the judgment “been a parish, district and county councillor representing the village“. She argued that:
– the Secretary of State had wrongly determined that a key policy of the local plan was out of date, without explaining the inconsistency of that conclusion with the reverse conclusion reached by him in another recovered appeal decision.

– the Secretary of State had made a material error of fact in treating the appeal site as falling outside an area of 7km designated for the purpose of protecting the Ashford Forest SPA and SAC (yes, this is a case to add to those covered in my 8.4.17 blog post, Heffalump Traps: The Ashdown Forest Cases).

Having allowed the appeal, when faced with the challenge the Secretary of State submitted to judgment on the first ground of challenge and did not participate in the hearing in front of John Howell QC – never a good moment for the developer to be left to justify as lawful that which the decision maker himself is now prepared to disown.
For what would seem to be a limited series of issues, the judgment is a long one at over 50 pages. Helpfully, the deputy judge’s conclusions are summarised from paragraph 148 onwards. To summarise the summary (rarely a good idea):
– Where a matter is not required by legislation to be taken into account, “a decision may be invalid when no reasonable decision maker in the circumstances would have failed to take that matter into account”.

– “There is a public interest in securing reasonable consistency in the exercise of administrative discretions, which may mean that it is unreasonable for a decision maker not to take into account other decisions that may bear in some respect on the decision to be made”

– “Given that one reason why the Secretary of State may “recover” planning appeals in order to determine them himself is to introduce coherence and consistency in development control, however, avoiding apparent and unexplained inconsistencies in the Secretary of State’s own decisions on matters that may have ramifications for decision making in other cases is an important consideration in determining what may be required of him if he is not to act unreasonably”.

– No reasonable decision maker would have failed to take reasonable steps to ensure that he had not issued any decisions relating to the question as to whether the relevant local plan policy was out of date. “It can only undermine public confidence in the operation of the development control system for there to be two decisions of the Secretary of State himself, issued from the same unit of his department on the same floor of the same building within 10 weeks of each other, reaching an apparently different conclusion on whether a development plan policy is up to date without any reference to, or sufficient explanation in the later one for, the difference”.

– The Secretary of State made a material error of fact in relation to whether any part of the site was within the Ashdown Forest 7km radius, which led to no consideration as to whether a condition should be imposed to prevent any dwellings from being constructed in that part of the site in breach of the Habitats Regulations.

The planning permission was quashed, although the deputy judge granted permission to appeal on both grounds.
It is indeed concerning that the DCLG would appear to have no adequate system to prevent the Secretary of State from issuing obviously inconsistent decisions – and indeed concerning that the conflicting conclusions could be reached in the first place, calling into question the extent to which objective determinations, shorn of context and politics, can be reached. Perhaps if the Secretary of State had not recovered so many appeals the problem wouldn’t have arisen. (It is even more difficult for the rest of us to keep track without a public-access searchable database).
The political obsession with seeking to give neighbourhood plan making a strong role in decision making is coming at great cost: delay, expense, a reduction in the objectivity of decision making (in my personal view) and, most worryingly, is continuing to be a drag on the delivery of new homes.
Simon Ricketts, 12 August 2017
Personal views, et cetera

Last weekend’s blog post was written in different times.
As predicted given May’s weak majority, Sajid Javid stayed in position as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. The announcement of Alok Sharma as housing and planning minister on 13 June was frankly a disappointment. No doubt he is a capable politician, but the task of planning for housing should be a critical priority for the government and to appoint again a junior minister without experience at a senior level of government, without a cabinet role and without previous planning or housing experience was not a good sign. The appalling fire in the Grenfell tower in the early hours of 14 June and the anger that followed was an immediate reality check as to why we need to get a grip on the seriousness of what we face. Come back Lord Heseltine.
This country has a housing crisis. Not enough homes are being built, there is a need for housing which is affordable for those of low means (including social housing with fixed rents) and we must ensure that what is occupied, new or old, is safe.
If, as the housing white paper trumpeted on its cover, we have a broken housing market, who is going to fix it, when and how?
Who is also going to make sure that the Building Regulations remain fit for purpose and that, crucially, local authorities have the powers and resources properly to enforce them? What is the bulwark against those inevitably lobbying for another “red tape challenge” or “one in two out” rule? This is wider than about the Grenfell tragedy, whatever its causes turn out to be. The next tragedy may well not be a fire but another lapse or loophole, where we will be told, again, that “lessons will need to be learned”, that there will be a “full public inquiry” and all of the other usual platitudes.
It is truly depressing that the present government (as well indeed as the Labour party) has Brexit (a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma) as its main policy focus rather than something as urgent and important as providing sufficient and safe housing. And more widely, to what extent has one reason for Brexit been to allow the UK government greater freedom to relax regulations that were designed to protect us or our environment? The government’s continued prevarication on air quality (largely pushing compliance down to local authorities) and the disdain for EU environmental protections expressed by our new Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs bring this into clear and immediate focus. But do we agree with these priorities? Housing, safety and security are fundamental human rights. Where do the objectives of Brexit (whatever they may be) appear on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for any of us?
But this is meant to be a planning law blog. I had intended this week to look at a recent inspector’s decision letter in relation to a planning appeal, as well as two recent rulings from the Court of Appeal. By coincidence, the local planning authority for all of them is the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
On 12 June 2017, an inspector, David Nicolson, dismissed an appeal by Notting Hill Gate KCS Limited for planning permission for the demolition of the existing buildings on a large site at the junction of Notting Hill Gate and Kensington Church Street and redevelopment to provide office, residential, and retail uses, and a flexible surgery/office use, across six buildings (ranging from ground plus two storeys to ground plus 17 storeys), together with landscaping to provide a new public square, ancillary parking and associated works.
On the site at present are a number of buildings, including the ugly and tired 12 storey office block known as Newcombe House; a linear block along Kensington Church Street with shops and restaurants, and Royston Court, a 5 storey building with ground floor retail and 20 self-contained studio units on the upper floors owned and managed by Notting Hill Housing Trust. The studios are occupied by former rough sleepers, in accordance with the grant conditions for its acquisition and refurbishment from the Rough Sleepers Initiative, although this is not secured at present by any section 106 obligation. The site is surrounded by four conservation areas but is outside all of them. There are listed buildings in the area, including Kensington Palace, listed grade 1.
Notting Hill Housing Trust proposed to compensate the Borough for the loss of nominations to Royston Court through the provision of 10 two-bed homes outside the Borough and committed that proceeds from the sale would be invested in the provision of new family homes in lower value areas.
The inspector identified the main issues in this appeal as “the effects of the proposals on:

a) the character and appearance of the area with particular regard to the relative height, scale and massing of the proposed tower and the architectural quality of its design;

b) the settings of nearby conservation areas and listed buildings;

c) the availability of social rented floorspace within the Borough.”

The inspector was satisfied on the first issue. On the second issue he found that there would in some instances be less than substantial harm, but that (subject to the scheme including sufficient affordable housing) this would be outweighed by the public benefits arising. However, the appeal was dismissed on the final, affordable housing, issue, for two reasons:
– There would therefore be a loss of social rented housing floorspace within the borough contrary to its policy CH3b which resists the net loss of both social rented and intermediate affordable housing floorspace and units throughout the borough
– The inspector considered that the site value of £33m within the appellant’s viability appraisal was too high and he consequently did not accept the appellant’s position that affordable housing “could not be provided on site or, more importantly, that there needs to be a loss of all the existing 20 social housing bed spaces on the site or a net loss in the borough“.

With a compliant affordable housing offer, or adjusted viability appraisal, the door is now open to the appellant to reapply. No doubt it is disappointing for all concerned that after such a slow and expensive process, appeal procedures are not such as to allow the appellant to respond to an inspector’s conclusions, perhaps by increasing its affordable housing commitment, before the formal decision was issued. Would that in some instances speed things up, or simply lead to additional brinksmanship?

Now turning to the two Court of Appeal rulings. In both cases our haphazard planning legislation, with its layers of amendments and its practical failings/ambiguities, has again been found wanting, although in neither case of any assistance to the claimant:

– In Republic of France v Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea (16 June 2017) the Court of Appeal unsurprisingly found that section 26H of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (a provision inserted by the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013) is of no use as a procedure for certifying that sufficient works have been carried out so as to keep a listed building consent alive – it simply exists to certify that specific works would not require consent on the basis that they would not affect the character of the listed building as a special architectural or historic interest. There is therefore still no procedure for listed building consents, analogous to section 192 of the Town and Country Planning Act in the case of planning permissions. Nor is there a definition of “material operation” in the Listed Buildings Act. The court found that equivalent works may suffice as for planning permissions but the position remains unsatisfactorily uncertain for all concerned – in that case on one side of the grandest of neighbourly disputes Jon Hunt seeking to keep alive consents for a five storey super-basement scheme at 10 Kensington Park Gardens, on the other side the French Ambassador’s residence at 11 Kensington Park Gardens and, trying to adjudicate between competing interests, RBKC (I previously blogged on 6 December 2016 as to the extent to which the borough is particularly beleaguered by these types of cases in First World Problems: Basements).
– In R (Khodari) v Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea (11 May 2017), the Court of Appeal held that obligations to requiring dwellings within a development to be “permit free”, ensuring that no one who occupied the additional units would apply for a resident’s parking permit, could not be secured by way of section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act, given that the obligation did not fall within the restrictive list in section 106(1) of the types of obligation that may be secured (ie (a) restricting the development or use of the land in any specified way; (b) requiring specified operations or activities to be carried out in, on, under or over the land; (c) requiring the land to be used in any specified way; or (d) requiring a sum or sums to be paid to the authority … on a specified date or dates or periodically). In London the issue is academic only as the wider powers within section 16 of the Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1974 can be recited but outside of London it is certainly an unnecessary headache. (The claimant, Mr Khodari, wasn’t even really concerned about the “permit free” issue – he was simply looking for a technicality to quash the permission as the permission was being relied upon by his landlord in proceedings being taken to end his tenancy).

Both cases currently seem an unnecessary distraction and examples of the disputes that increasingly occupy too much time for planners – certainly first world problems in contrast to the more fundamental challenges those affected by the Grenfell disaster now face. Donations to the British Red Cross London Fire Relief Fund may be made here.

So much for fixing the broken housing market. Those poor DCLG civil servants. Here we are again in wholly uncertain territory – anathema to planning, anathema to business. In the aftermath of the Brexit vote I wrote a blog post on how we can possibly give any useful advice in these sorts of situations, How To Predict; How To Advise.
This blog post simply sets out various questions, to which I do not know the answer.
First, how long will May stay as PM? Will we see a Conservative leadership challenge, will we have an early election (again)?
Secondly, will May lead a minority government, dependent vote by vote, issue by issue on the DUP and/or common positions with other parties, or will this be a true coalition government with a formal coalition agreement? In either case, what terms will the DUP extract? This will certainly be an early test for the PM of her negotiating skills, ahead of the start of Brexit talks that start on 19 June (the same day as the Queen’s Speech – the future comes at you fast doesn’t it…) and indeed ahead of the resumption of Parliament on 13 June. Will she be able to bring her own party to the table with the DUP given the DUP’s stance on LGBT, abortion and climate change (on the last of which, see this 9 June 2017 Greenpeace summary)? Will an alliance with the DUP be consistent with the Northern Ireland power-sharing arrangements within the Good Friday Agreement? Are they a competent partner, given for instance the “cash for ash” debacle that has cost all of us dear (see i-news 17 May 2017 )?
Thirdly, specifically in relation to planning matters in England, does a minority government matter, given a Conservative majority within England itself? After all, when it comes to planning and other devolved matters, the EVEL (English Votes For English Laws) amendments made in 2015 to Parliamentary standing orders come into play. As with matters of Northern Irish politics, the detailed operation of EVEL is far from my special subject, but basically if provision in legislative business is certified by the Speaker as only affecting England, or England and Wales, and within devolved legislative competence, only the members of Parliament within the relevant administrations have a vote. This is all explained in more detail in a House of Commons Library research paper (2 December 2015). In fact the Housing and Planning Bill was the first to have its provisions certified, on 28 October 2015, under the new standing orders. Short of legislation, many other planning functions of the Secretary of State can of course be conducted without the need for a vote in Parliament, although necessarily only by proceeding with extreme caution given the political vulnerability. Two other thoughts on this issue: (1) the standing orders can be changed by a simple majority – a minority government will be vulnerable to that, so for how long will EVEL survive? and (2) EVEL of course means that DUP votes count for nothing in relation to English and Welsh devolved matters.
Fourthly, who will the ministerial team be? Former housing and planning minister Gavin Barwell of course lost his seat and it will be tough to replace him with someone with an equivalent grasp of the detail (although it does seem like yesterday that I wrote my 17 July 2016 blog post when his appointment was first announced). Whilst Secretary of State Sajid Javid retained his seat, he has long been rumoured as out of favour with the PM (eg Conservative Home piece 8 February 2017) but, with the new mantra of ‘stability’, will he stay in position?
Fifthly, what of the current policy agenda, with so many pieces of unfinished business? I set out where things were left in my 21.4.17 blog post, Parliament, Purdah, Planning. Is it realistic to expect a new incumbent to make quick progress, simply accepting the previous agenda and direction? Surely not. Save for the most technical, least politically sensitive matters, a delay surely is to be expected. Whether that matters in most areas is another question – on the one hand we have all been using that ‘stability’ mantra for a long time but on the other hand, if the repeated Conservative manifesto commitment on housing numbers is to be achieved, we can’t carry on as we are. As Einstein may or may not have said, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results = insanity.
Sixthly, is there the political capacity at the moment for more far-reaching reforms? Surely, faced the unique challenge of the Article 50 negotiations (with their fixed March 2019 deadline) and a precarious hold on power, the prospects of radical thinking in any other area, including planning and infrastructure, have significantly receded. In practice, how much time will the cabinet have for CIL reform let alone more radical land value capture/compulsory purchase compensation law changes; or for HS2 phase 2, let alone Crossail 2?
Nightmarish? Possibly. Fascinating? Absolutely!!
Simon Ricketts 10.6.17
Personal views, et cetera